On dissociation of heavy mesons in a hot quark–gluon plasma Original Research Article

We compare two mechanisms for the dissociation of heavy mesons in an infinite quark–gluon plasma: dynamic Debye screening and multiple scattering. Using the uncertainty principle inspired by a Schrödinger-like equation, we find that the criterion View the MathML source with View the MathML source is parametrically true both for the dissociation of fast moving heavy mesons with a size aB due to dynamic Debye screening as well as for mesons at rest in the medium. In contrast, we find that the criterion for the dissociation of heavy mesons due to uncorrelated multiple scattering is parametrically View the MathML source. Therefore, multiple scattering is a more efficient mechanism for the dissociation of heavy mesons in an infinite hot plasma.